EXTINCT AND EXISTING GLACIERS OF COLORADO 69 



tion of other ice-fields besides Arapahoe as glaciers. Hills^ also 

 mentions neve in the San Juan district. 



In an east-facing cirque on the northeast side of the north spur 

 of Arapahoe Peak, just over a sharp ridge from Arapahoe Glacier, is 

 a body of well-stratified and crevassed ice, estimated to be 1,500 feet 

 wide and 800 feet long, showing undoubted evidence of movement, but 

 my impression was, while on the ground, that it was sliding as a mass, 

 rather than with the motion of a glacier. It does not now seem to 

 be building a moraine nor to be discharging fresh glacial mud into 

 the terminal lake. Icebergs in the lake are Ukely produced by under- 

 mining as explained elsewhere in this paper, rather than by the for- 

 ward movement of the ice. Half a mile or so further north in the 

 head of Albion Gulch is a similar body of ice, showing slight evidence 

 of movement. Numerous smaller ice-masses in the region show 

 crevasses when the fresh snow is all melted off in a dry, hot season, 

 but I do not consider them glaciers. 



Possibly the Andrew, Sprague and Tyndall glaciers should be 

 classed as neve rather than as glaciers, if not, indeed, the Hallett also, 

 but I have visited none of them. Certainly from the evidence the 

 title of the first three is shaky, and if they are to be accepted, then the 

 North Arapahoe and Albion Gulch ice-bodies and many others must 

 be added to the list, which I do not believe should be done. 



Comstock, as hereinbefore noted, refers to existing glaciers in the 

 San Juan Mountain district, Hayden reports "great masses of snow, 

 like glaciers," in the Blue River Range, and Siebenthal has informed 

 the writer that glaciers probably exist on Mount Massive, near Lead- 

 ville. These statements, coupled with the facts that there are many 

 wild portions of our higher mountains which have not been explored 

 in search of glaciers ; that they are more apt to exist in secluded cirques 

 at heads of gulches, with very steep walls, uninviting to the average 

 traveler; that Arapahoe Glacier, in plain sight from several large 

 towns and cities, was not recognized as a glacier until within a few 

 years; and that the Isabel and Fair glaciers, though within a few 

 miles of a mining camp and only a day's journey on horseback from 



'Hnxs, R. C, "Extinct Glaciers of the San Juan Mountains, Colorado," Proc. Colo. Sci. Soc, Vol. I, 

 pp. 39-46, 1883. 



